Biggest. Government. Handout. Ever.

The next time you hear some right-winger complain about government assistance to poor folks, tell him about THIS:

As far as free lunches go, we of course just witnessed the biggest government handout in history, one that Romney himself endorsed. Four and a half trillion dollars in bailout money already disbursed, trillions more still at risk in guarantees and loans, sixteen trillion dollars in emergency lending from the Federal Reserve, two trillion in quantitative easing, etc. etc. All of this money went to Romney’s pals in the Wall Street banks that for years helped Romney take over companies with mountains of borrowed cash. Now, after these banks crashed, executives at those same firms used those public funds to pay themselves massive salaries, which is exactly the opposite of “helping those who need help,” if you’re keeping score.

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TARP is one of those government programs that everyone appears to hate. Tea Party types don’t like it because they saw it as an overreach of big government into the private sector. Liberals don’t like it because they see it as a form of crony capitalism that only benefited the rich folks.

Problem is, they’re both wrong.

TARP was an absolute necessity. The flow of credit is a utility in this country. Millions of small businesses operate on lines of credit to make monthly payrolls. They can’t survive for long without it. TARP saved of millions jobs. I’ll even argue that TARP did much more to save middle class jobs than the Stimulus bill proponents could ever dream.

But right wingers have every right to complain about government assistance to poor folks. With TARP, there is only about $32B outstanding to be paid back from the original $431B disbursed, many of the banks even paid back the loans with plenty of interest, meaning the US government actually made money off the program. I don’t see the people on the welfare rolls and food stamps paying back Uncle Sam anytime soon.

Please note that the blog Pat cited referenced the figures at Sourcewatch.org, who are generally considered to be the WND of the financial blogsphere. That 4 1/2 trillion figure is a farce. For the real information, go to the people that actually know, the CBO.

This isn’t in reference to TARP (while I abhor it, I understand it’s necessity-just a shame that SIGNIFICANT concessions weren’t sought from banks as part of it) this is referring to the use of the discount window @ the FED. The “backdoor bailout”.

Romney’s Wall Street pals??? UUhhh..I do believe that OBAMA received the MOST campaign contributions from his Wall Street pals on 2008. Really digging deep to say that tax cheat Geitner QE2 plans were fouled because of banks. And didn’t the Dodd/Frank Bill protect us from these fat cats investing in poor stocks and from receiving golden parachutes….nope…it didn’t. So I guess we have to ask, (that’s ax) for you folks in Chicago, what did Dodd and Frank do??? And Pat, endorsing is one thing, but spewing BS about it and then signing it is yet another. Typical play to absolve Obama from HIS responsibility and accountability. What Barack Hussein Obama should we believe today? The one that says “you couldn’t do it without someone else-meaning the Gov or hey, I had nothing to do with it…it’s someone else’s fault??? I guess that’s what we get with a guy that smoked and snorted his way into College while the adults were being responsible.